2009.09.14 07:00 - On the salty side...

doug Sosa: morning..
Corvuscorva Nightfire: mornin, Doug, how are you?
doug Sosa: ok i think. not paying to much attention to him.
Corvuscorva Nightfire smiles. Tell me what you are paying attention to, then?
doug Sosa: yourself?
Corvuscorva Nightfire thinks.
Corvuscorva Nightfire: I'm just barely awake.
doug Sosa: actually, what happens when there are big transitions, like renaissance or fall of rome.
doug Sosa: when expanding economy hitgs sustainability.
Corvuscorva Nightfire: nods, thoughtfully. Big world transitions? or any kind of transition.
Corvuscorva Nightfire thinks...that one's easy..you can see what happens in any population...
doug Sosa: mostly big, but the local are as interesting..
Corvuscorva Nightfire: either the resources expand or the population shrinks.
Corvuscorva Nightfire: nods.
doug Sosa: Line from yesterday, "act local, destroy global."
Corvuscorva Nightfire: whooof.
Corvuscorva Nightfire: nods
doug Sosa: right.
Corvuscorva Nightfire: well, no group sets out to destroy their resources..us any more than a population of rabbits or beaver.
doug Sosa: i've been thinkingabout how in normal perception there is a kind of hierarchy of awareness, the things that fit the task.
doug Sosa: but if we drop that things are more equal, each with their own right to exist.
Corvuscorva Nightfire nods...that's true...perhaps we dont' do that cause we rarely have enough brainpower to devote to "everything" without overloading.
Corvuscorva Nightfire: I've been hearing you playing with that idea for a while now, though

Corvuscorva Nightfire: Hey Cal!!!
Corvuscorva Nightfire grins
doug Sosa: yep, takes me a while.
doug Sosa: hi cal.
Caledonia Heron: hi :)
Corvuscorva Nightfire nods..it takes some stillness to do it, I think.
doug Sosa: yes, and i am learnig one can be still in the midst of action.
Corvuscorva Nightfire: for Cal: [7:03] doug Sosa: i've been thinkingabout how in normal perception there is a kind of hierarchy of aareness, the things that fit the task. [7:03] doug Sosa: but if we drop that things are more equal, each with their own right to exist. [7:04] Corvuscorva Nightfire nods...that's true...perhaps we dont' do that cause we rarely have enough brainpower to deveote to "everything" without overloading.
Caledonia Heron: ty :)
Corvuscorva Nightfire: that's trickier, to do it in the midst of action.
Caledonia Heron: busy clicking through those blue boxes :)
Corvuscorva Nightfire grins, nodding.
doug Sosa: i think its a diffeent state, focus and vigilaance. in focus most of the world dissapears.
doug Sosa: but in vigilance it is all alive.
Corvuscorva Nightfire nods. yes.

Corvuscorva Nightfire: Doug, why is this a useful thing to do?
doug Sosa: useful?
doug Sosa: Hmm.
Corvuscorva Nightfire: i mean, II think it might be, but why?
doug Sosa: It feels good. and leads to greater awareness.
doug Sosa: and easier relation of self to nature and stuff.
Corvuscorva Nightfire grins at the it feels good.
Corvuscorva Nightfire: nods..
Caledonia Heron: :)
doug Sosa: what would be your answers?
Corvuscorva Nightfire: thinks.
Corvuscorva Nightfire: I do, do what I think you are saying, during the 9 or 90 seconds sometimes.
Corvuscorva Nightfire: for me, it de emphasizes things i thought were important and allows for new perspectives.
Corvuscorva Nightfire: and it does feel good.
doug Sosa: yes, a touch of a smile in the midst of difficulties.

Corvuscorva Nightfire: just as you said that, i was putting salt on a japanese eggplant, using an ancient can of salt I had...when the bottom dropped out.
Corvuscorva Nightfire: landing salt all over my foot.
Caledonia Heron: lol
Corvuscorva Nightfire laughs...somehow that seemed significant
doug Sosa: beautiful. a waterfall of salt. Now you get to see the floor.
Corvuscorva Nightfire giggles.
Caledonia Heron: salt for days :)
doug Sosa: and feel the amazing way salt, like sand ..
doug Sosa: pours, yet is solid.
doug Sosa: i imagine the moment the bottom let go as somewhat like the moment of going intothe 9 sec.
doug Sosa: how to see it in slow motion..
Corvuscorva Nightfire enjoyed that 90 seconds, playing it while cleaning salt, stirring rice ad putting the eggplant in the fridge, noticing her hand, the appearance of the presence of "herself"
Corvuscorva Nightfire: as these things occur.

doug Sosa: those moments of looking at self as if it were another.
Corvuscorva Nightfire: it was odder than that, even...not really as if the self were another.
Corvuscorva Nightfire: but just without the usual "importance" of the self doing the stuff.
Corvuscorva Nightfire: it felt nicely "present"
doug Sosa: here is an interesting thing to do.. take say your rlet index finger
doug Sosa: lookat it
doug Sosa: and ask it what it wants to do.
doug Sosa: it will tell you!!
Corvuscorva Nightfire: smiles.
doug Sosa: and glad, for once, to be asked!
Corvuscorva Nightfire: heheh
Caledonia Heron: :)
doug Sosa: I am going to go, shower and out the door to a meeting. what a great way this was to start the day. I'll be thinking of the cascading salt all day!
Corvuscorva Nightfire: enjoy your meeting and your day.
Caledonia Heron: bye Doug :)

Corvuscorva Nightfire: How are you, Cal?
Caledonia Heron: I'm good, ... salt free for the most part :)
Corvuscorva Nightfire: Giggles.
Caledonia Heron: tell me about your experience at the retreat, (if you like)
Corvuscorva Nightfire: hmmm....well, first...it was great...a great place, great food, great people, amazing trees, incredible weather...both very cold and very hot....and an all around amazing adventure, quite without learning anything.
Corvuscorva Nightfire: We spent alot of time sitting together staring at trees and deers and carpet and stuff.
Caledonia Heron: :)
Corvuscorva Nightfire thinks...I haven't any contemplative tradition or practice, beyond boredom in church.
Corvuscorva Nightfire: which I quit at 17.
Caledonia Heron: ah, similar to me (except the church part)
Corvuscorva Nightfire: me smiles.
Corvuscorva Nightfire: So, I was scared, going, that I wouldn't be comfortable sitting still for long periods of time.
Corvuscorva Nightfire: The good thing was..there were no long periods of contemplation.
Corvuscorva Nightfire: and all the periods of contemplation felt waaaay too short.
Caledonia Heron: interesting
Corvuscorva Nightfire: I still had alot of contemplating to do each time the bell rang.
Corvuscorva Nightfire: laughs.
Caledonia Heron: :)
Caledonia Heron: so overall, worthwhile?
Corvuscorva Nightfire laughs. "to say the least."

Corvuscorva Nightfire: The exercises we did were fun, and interesting..but in a way it seems to me that the subject of contemplation is just a trick...something to keep your mind busy while you do the real work.
Corvuscorva Nightfire: whatever that is.
Caledonia Heron: yeah, when I read "while you do the real work" I immediately thought "I wonder what that is"
Corvuscorva Nightfire: heheh. Nods.
Caledonia Heron: my minds taunts me to say, that's the joke, there's no work
Corvuscorva Nightfire giggles...I like that.
Caledonia Heron imagines millions of people in epic battles with taunting minds :)
Corvuscorva Nightfire wheezes with laughter.
Caledonia Heron: hang on to your salt!
Corvuscorva Nightfire: hehehehehhehehh
Corvuscorva Nightfire starts coughing.
Corvuscorva Nightfire: yeah.

Caledonia Heron: maybe one of the things you carry away from the retreat is the sense of shared experience, with those whom you spent time
Corvuscorva Nightfire: there's no doubt of that
Caledonia Heron: the sense of group, that synched up feeling, a kind of baseline that you can use .... a techie thing like a benchmark :)
Corvuscorva Nightfire: hehe
Caledonia Heron: or in stare at the deer parlance, a ground of being
Corvuscorva Nightfire smiles. It was nice to do it as a group...for me one thing that's allowed is doing it as a group, here.
Caledonia Heron: yes for sure ... although "here" is a kind of extension of self, nothing compares to proximity, shared electrical current, personality, stuff like that which you can only get in person
Corvuscorva Nightfire: i hadn't considered that idea, before
Corvuscorva Nightfire thinks...for me..I can do that in sl.

Corvuscorva Nightfire: I feel people's presence pretty clearly, here.
Caledonia Heron: sure, I think it's a percentage shot on that ..... not at 100% like being physically with people but a close approximation
Corvuscorva Nightfire nods, shrugging.
Caledonia Heron: say, I would have gotten a whole different vibe off you had I been in your kitchen having salt on my toes too :)
Corvuscorva Nightfire: heh
Corvuscorva Nightfire: maybe, or maybe not.
Corvuscorva Nightfire: I was finding it pretty funny in any life.
Caledonia Heron: lol for sure
Corvuscorva Nightfire: you did miss that moment of shock and surprise, and then laughter as I read the screen.
Caledonia Heron: yes! exactly what I mean
Corvuscorva Nightfire: it is a different experience, I'll give you that.
Corvuscorva Nightfire thinks.

Caledonia Heron: and.... cool to know it through this medium as it happens ... or else it would have melted into all the other realities
Corvuscorva Nightfire: I guess what I'm thinking about is presence.
Corvuscorva Nightfire: and made upness.
Corvuscorva Nightfire: each life is a story..
Corvuscorva Nightfire: real life and second life
Corvuscorva Nightfire: told through various senses.
Corvuscorva Nightfire: and interpreted by busy minds.
Corvuscorva Nightfire: who choose what to focus on.
Caledonia Heron: I think the two have co-mingled irreparably for me .... I am glad to share this world with you while we sit in our physical worlds, it's a strange state of mind but then it's not, a paradox that doesn't matter :)
Caledonia Heron: and yes, focus and perspective are huge
Corvuscorva Nightfire nods.

Corvuscorva Nightfire: so I'm thinking that if I share your presence here, or there...I still have some "inputs" different ones..but important ones...to hang my experience of shared contemplation on...as long as I don't reify in either life...I'm doing well.
Corvuscorva Nightfire: of course..I'm reifying all the time in both lives.
Corvuscorva Nightfire: things that aren't strictly speaking real.
Caledonia Heron: yes, and we turn the corner to what is real .... the things we know aren't real and the stuff we think is real but if we go out on that limb, aren't so real perhaps
Corvuscorva Nightfire: heheh. nods.
Caledonia Heron: and taunting mind says, yes but what about science ... if things are real what about all those reproducible results .... argh :)
Caledonia Heron: *aren't real
Corvuscorva Nightfire smiles...I wasn't discounting those things...at all.
Corvuscorva Nightfire: thinks.
Caledonia Heron: see, taunting mind snuck into my typing.... forcing me to type "are" real

Corvuscorva Nightfire: I think that reproducable results are signs of a level of "real" that "really" exists.
Corvuscorva Nightfire: but then, there is perspective...and interpretation.
Caledonia Heron: just putting it out there, don't know any answers, poking at the questions, no good responses :)
Corvuscorva Nightfire: some of those results have wound up in two or three or four or a thousand theories...as the theory evolves.
Caledonia Heron: yes, agree, that's how a body of knowledge evolves for sure
Corvuscorva Nightfire: and you can take a chemical reaction and explain it at alot of very real scientific and mathematic levels.
Corvuscorva Nightfire: nods...
Corvuscorva Nightfire: the trick is playing with the concept such that you take it seriously, yet let it evolve.
Caledonia Heron: like a game :)
Caledonia Heron: the game of science
Corvuscorva Nightfire: smiles. I guess I think aobut reifying and not re-ifyiing this way...to allow myself theories of reality that are constantly getting more sophisticated.
Corvuscorva Nightfire nods.
Caledonia Heron: another game :)
Corvuscorva Nightfire: checking often against reproducable results.
Corvuscorva Nightfire nods.
Corvuscorva Nightfire: too little theorizing and I'm paralyzed...too much and I'm stuck.
Corvuscorva Nightfire: on a more personal level.
Caledonia Heron: please understand my comments are me walking around and poking the question ... I have no idea on the bottom line beyond my limited experience
Corvuscorva Nightfire: oh, yes..I'm doing the same thing...blathering theories that I'm making up on the spot.
Caledonia Heron: excellent!!
Caledonia Heron: comrade!!
Corvuscorva Nightfire grins.

Caledonia Heron: I like to do 9 sec as a place to step outside my stories and theories
Corvuscorva Nightfire nods..yeah.
Corvuscorva Nightfire: and then my busy mind scrambles to write the theories and stories again.
Caledonia Heron: sure
Caledonia Heron: accepting to that's the way it goes ... if there is more balance, or even release the stories an increment that can be a good thing
Corvuscorva Nightfire nods.
Corvuscorva Nightfire: that makes sense.
Caledonia Heron: if I allow myself the stories and theories and allow the "not" of that ... it's to the good, for me ....
Caledonia Heron: might as well allow them since they're present anyway :)
Corvuscorva Nightfire nods, smiles...I guess they're appearances too..to be befriended.
Caledonia Heron: I think so, .... resistance is futile :)
Corvuscorva Nightfire wheezes again.
Corvuscorva Nightfire: oh god, Cal, I gotta go.
Caledonia Heron: k

Corvuscorva Nightfire: this was fun...thanks for listening to my theories.
Corvuscorva Nightfire: and playing with them.
Caledonia Heron: take care .... and you to mine ... the current ones anyway :)
Corvuscorva Nightfire grins.
Corvuscorva Nightfire: Talk to you later!
Caledonia Heron: nice to walk "home" from here :)
Caledonia Heron: yes, see you soon
Corvuscorva Nightfire: very cool...